


Touchstone

by Apricot



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricot/pseuds/Apricot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the end of the world and there are few things a girl can count on. Set early in Season 1. Sam/Five if you squint, mostly Five/running.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touchstone

This is the thing about the end of the world: it doesn’t quite feel like the end.

In between the nightmares, and the anxiety attacks that make Five’s chest feel like her lungs are the filling in an anvil sandwich, there is far too much work to be doing to think about anything other than taking one more footstep, one more breath, and allow one more heartbeat to pump oxygen in her veins. There’s fuel to find, and the construction of new dorms, a search for food, an expanded comm center to keep her from dwelling too long on certain things. Like friends and family left behind and a world gone to hell. 

Those are things that she doesn’t think about, because even though this is the end of the world living day-to-day is difficult enough.

The runs are almost helpful. The adrenaline keeps her going, and gives an edge that keeps her eyes clear and her ears pricked for danger, and the physical  _pounding_  of her shoes on grass is what drives the demons in her head away, keeps that knot in her stomach from climbing up into her throat and strangling her. It makes her too tired to dream. And it makes it easier to forget about life before Abel, about everything she left behind and everything she experienced afterward.

More than anything, she wants to forget about that. The other runners and Sam make fun because she prefers to be called Five and Five lets them. Everyone has stories, and like Runner Eight told her once, they’re never good stories. Some people might prefer to wear their tragedies on their sleeves, but Five has never been good at that and the end of the world is no reason to start being a bleeding heart. Sam is curious, and Eight is suspicious, and neither are very good about being subtle in their questions after a mission and around the mess hall or Rec center. Five is evasive and sometimes sharp, and Sam is occasionally wounded, but soothed with a quick smile. Eight doesn’t seem to care.

The truth is, after a long, hard run, and when the sun has gone down and the fires have been put out, Five almost feels normal. As the days pass by and another run has been completed, another mission, Five can almost start to crave the feeling of dirt and grass beneath her feet again. Looking forward to getting out of Abel, into the woods and the clear open space. Sometimes, a run comes where she doesn’t even see a zom and that evokes such a sense of relief that she can trade barbs at Sam in the mess hall, and laugh hard enough at Eugene’s and Jack’s antics that tears prick her eyes.

It doesn’t last, but then this is the end of the world. Nothing is going to last.

Sam, however,  is a constant, and soon the crackle of static in her ear doesn’t make her jump, and she doesn’t second guess his directions in her mind- twisting to run East when he tells her too, almost reacting before she comprehends. It’s rewarded when she manages to just slip away from a mob of ten zoms, not losing a single one of the supplies she’d gathered.  
  
On one of her salvage supply runs she gets close to getting caught. The brush was too thick, and the zom came almost out of nowhere, nearly pushing her into the open arms of four other undead. She escapes, losing _two_ precious bottles of pain meds, but the scratches on her arms and the ringing in her ears is only from the tree branches and Sam’s panicked directions. She doesn’t need adrenaline from the run to fly home then- the fear puts wings in her feet and her heart is still pounding so rapidly she drops the bags of supplies at Maxine’s feet and bolts after her post-run checkup.  
  
This is the end of the world.  
  
She loses her breakfast on the side of the comm center- nowhere is private in Abel, but at least the bricked up wall hides her from stares for a little while. It takes her a while to stop shaking, her back against the comfortable cold stone, and her breath sharp.

Here is the part where she should cry, if Five had any tears left. But instead she focuses on the hum of the radio tower- Sam must be directing one of the other runners, because she can hear the murmur of his voice through the boarded window.

  
She closes her eyes and lets the familiar rise and drop of his tone wash over her, and patter of his words relaxes something deep down.

This is the end of the world, and nothing is solid and nothing is certain, but for now his voice is a touchstone and she doesn’t have much else to go on. Her pulse can finally slow, and she wipes her eyes and nose with the back of her hand, swallowing the dry, bitter taste back.

From what she can hear, it’s an easy run- a reconnaissance run, which means it must be one of the younger runners-in-training, and Sam’s voice is easy and kind. She puts two fingers to the corner of her jaw, swallowing hard as she measures her pulse. It takes a while, but eventually it comes down again.

When she can breathe almost normally she gets to her feet, her eyes flicking to the comm for one more moment before she walks away, each stride longer than the last.  
  
The end of the world has very little room for constants, and she is vastly grateful for the ones she has: the feel of grass beneath her, the tension of her legs and the sweet release of the run, and his voice in her ears, leading her back. 

 

 

 


End file.
